FAVOURITE DISH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 May 1938, Page 5

FAVOURITE DISH

ORIGIN OF BOUILLABAISSE. The delectable dish beloved of the inhabitants of Marseilles and sung in verse by Thackeray has a long history, and Marseilles claims its discovery. The restaurants of the Canebiere put it in large letters on their menus, and somehow the dish of soup and fish and all sorts of wonderful things never seems to taste as well anywhere as along the coast next to the blue Mediterranean. The story of the invention tells how a poor woman sat with tears in her eyes as she looked at a little bread and wine she had bought for her Children with her last halfpence. On the table were also a little garlic, an onion, two tomatoes, salt and pepper and olive ' oil in a bottle. ’ Her children asked why she was so sad. and after putting their heads together they all went off, saying they would be back soon. When they came back they each brought a different fish begged from a neighbour. With the garlic, the onion and the tomatoes the old woman made a wonderful dish into which she put the fish, with slices of bread cut thin. Thus was Bouillabaisse born, according to M. Julien Jacque, a writer in the “Petit Nicois.”